Among the first Passive Houses in France, this bamboo-clad farmhouse by the Parisian firm Karawitz Architecture only uses a tenth of the energy a conventionally constructed home does. Photo by Nicholas Calcott.

The Lai family—Mayuko, baby Shota on her lap, David, Maya, and Yumi sitting on a cushion on the deck—relaxes in their indoor-outdoor living space, made by opening the glass sliding doors to connect the living room and engawa deck.

The most sustainable element of all is the Lais’ intention to make their first home their last home as well. “Some people have this mentality of getting a starter house, then upgrading from there,” David says. “We just wanted to find a place to live in and then stay there forever.” Eventually they imagine passing the home down to their children.

Using technology to design a home as energy-efficient as possible was a priority for Hague, both from a financial and philosophical standpoint. Along with Passive House certification for the main house, a solar array on the roof of the barn keeps energy use near zero. In fact, the entire property was Net Zero before the addition of the pool, and it may soon generate an energy surplus with the addition of a second solar array at the main house.

Setsumasa and Hideaki toss on the rain fly. The solar panel in the foreground supplies daytime electricity.

A 1.4-kW solar array by Sharp and propane-powered in-floor radiant heating from Radiantec obviate any need to connect to municipal power.

Most impressive of all, a solar array on the roof empowers the residents to produce more energy than they consume on-site.

The cabin’s exterior walls and roof are clad in overlapping stone plates that mimic the look of traditional wood paneling found in Western Norway. “It provides an affinity with the cabins nearby,” partner and architect Nils Ole Bae Brandtzæg explains. Solar panels cover the chimney pipe, lighting LED lamps inside.

A 260-square-foot solar array was installed atop a triangular section of the roof, which faces due south and is angled at 30 degrees for optimal solar collection.

The Sustainable L.A. Grand Challenge, a UCLA initiative with 150 faculty across 40 different departments, has the stated goal of bringing the L.A. region to 100% sustainability in water and energy while enhancing biodiversity by 2050.

Sulfurcell solar panels.

A typical home uses somewhere around 150-200 therms of natural gas to heat water each year. With a solar system, usage is reduced to around 100 therms a year.

Solar Panels

A panorama of sylvan hills and ocean views surrounds artist Richard Brothers’s environmentally minded Orcas Island, Washington, home.

“Often when we talk about sustainability we focus on the gadgetry, what makes things feasible off grid,” Moffitt says. “But to me there are more interesting things in passive design that rely on the available sun and wind.” An eight-panel solar array does chip in significantly, generating all the electricity the house needs.

To power the building, Blee and Halligan hooked up two solar panels—though not without difficulty. "The roof faces the wrong way—north—so we couldn't mount the panels on it," Blee says. Instead, they affixed the two 1.5-by-1.5-foot solar arrays to a nearby existing wall and ran cables back to the structure. To increase efficiency by not having to convert the 12-volt power coming from the panels to higher, more appliance-friendly wattage, the architects installed 12-volt light fixtures throughout. "You can't plug a laptop into the wall, but it's a more simple and robust system: just two panels wired into the battery," Blee says.

Rooftop solar panels and a rainwater filtration system minimize its dependence on the grid.

The UC system and UCLA have a goal of carbon neutrality by 2025, with solar water heating an important part of that goal.

Porches are a beloved element of the Southern vernacular and lifestyle, traditionally serving as an extension of the indoors—a shady place to gather, socialize, or share a meal. So when the students of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, entered the Solar Decathlon, a biennial energy-efficient residential design competition, the iconic space figured prominently in their concept. Here, a canopy of bifacial solar panels covers the porch and provides energy for the home.

At a net-zero home in San Francisco, the house's green roof is more of a brown roof: a desert-like array of native and non-native succulents that require minimal irrigation. The soil area is maintained with motorcycle tires (including one from a Harley hog), which control erosion. Composting takes place here as well.

The exterior features vertical, untreated cedar panels. “We tried to use materials that are beautiful in their natural state without excessive treatment or finishing,” Pavonetti says.

A steel-beam canopy with solar panels shades the house and provides electricity.

While a lengthy building lifespan minimizes environmental impact—for example, the charred cedar will last 80 years—an array of solar panels 50 yards from the house also allows it to operate independently from the electrical grid. A cistern collects fresh water from a nearby natural spring.

Last but not least: unusually sleek solar panels by Lumos, shown here as a shade structure/garage. They're super-efficient and surprisingly affordable—shown here sheltering a new electric car from Infiniti, Dwell on Design's presenting auto sponsor.

Operable panels of the built-in cabinetry, in chocolate and caramel colors, offer cues to the color palette of more mobile furnishings. Using the same panel material, the architect customized a West Elm couch for the living room.

Sun Volt With the roof angled at 43 degrees, the architects lined the southern slant of the house with solar panels to collect as many rays as possible. Karanesheva and Witzmann started with four, but then added 23 more, all by Systaïc; the company gave them a deal since theirs was its first installation in France. The panels now collect far more energy than the home actually needs, a precious resource that the pair sells back to the power company. systaic.com

Passive ProgressiveStunning bamboo covers this house in Bessancourt, France, on all four sides, its lattice making up a striking set of adjustable screens that allow the residents to modify the facade to suit the weather. Photo by: Nicholas Calcott

An array of solar thermal tubes crowns the garage, and photovoltaic panels extend like wings over the third-floor deck. “If we were going to make a big architectural move, we had to have reasons,” Moore explains, referring to the conspicuous placement of the panels.

The entire cabin is powered by the rooftop solar system from Solarwinds Northernlights. "I still can't get over the fact that I can get an ice cube from the sun," Bruce says.

Milena Karanesheva and Mischa Witzmann—the married couple behind Paris-based Karawitz Architecture—designed a 1,733-square-foot house that uses only 4,200 kilowatt-hours per year—about a tenth of what a conventionally constructed house in France might use. With no other means of heating or cooling than those generated by the structure—a tenet of Passive House design—the new home is modeled on the French country dwellings of the area. Photo by Nicholas Calcott.

National Stadium (Kaohsiung, Taiwan: 2009) Japanese architect Toyo Ito’s coiled dragon of a design, with solar panels for scales, was a bold statement for sustainable design when it was inaugurated for the World Games. Nearly 75% of the building’s energy needs are met with solar power, and the woven grid of pipes calls to mind not so much a reptilian coldness but a fabric wrapped around the crowd. Photo by Yuting Hu via Creative Commons

The tin panels lining the stairs are original to the house.

The solar panels on the roof often get covered in a heavy layer of snow, but with periodic clearing, they are as effective during the sunny days of winter as they are during fairer weather.

All but one homeowner at Auburn chose to install solar panels supplied by Buel Solar on the “solar-ready” roofs.

When Alex or Bruce leave the island, closing up shop is as simple as sliding panels of corrugated metal into place to protect the windows.

Steve Conine, a software engineer, installed and programmed many of the details himself, like the Dell UltraSharp flat-screen panels inlaid into the entryway of the home.